Susan Estrich, former Dukakis campaign manager, just said on Fox that she was appalled by the attacks on Palin as “really unfair” and “really sexist.”
Also at Wizbang, Lorie Byrd says that CBS attributed Lieberman’s speech to cronyism and self-interest:
I tuned to CBS to hear how they would spin the speech by Joe Lieberman, former Democrat Vice Presidential candidate. Grrrr. Unbelievable. Evidently, the reason he endorsed John McCain is only because he is John McCain’s close friend and if McCain wins he will get a cabinet post. Grrrrrr. Lieberman couldn’t possibly think McCain was the right man for the job. He couldn’t possibly think that McCain is best for the country at this time. Nope. Self interest and loyalty to a friend. That’s the ticket. I thought the media line would be that Lieberman isn’t really a Democrat, that he is an independent now. Lieberman went into detail about all the reasons he is supporting John McCain (war on terror, reform, history of service and delivering on what he says he will do, etc.) but the only reason Bob Schieffer could come up with is self interest. Lieberman must have done even better than I thought. The speech was very low key in contrast to Fred Thompson’s, but it was very good and I suspect very effective. Hopefully Americans listened to the speech, rather than to the [Democratic Media] . . . spin.
It really is an unusual thing that the 2000 Democratic VP candidate was a main speaker at the 2008 Republican convention. It’s hard to think that Lieberman would do this unless he thought that the War Against Terror (and the War in Iraq) were the most important issues facing the country and that McCain was much better on the war than Obama. This same commitment to the war — and refusal to accept defeat by withdrawing troops by early 2008 — is what drove him out of the Democratic Party.
I didn’t see either the speech or CBS’s spin. Did Schieffer really say what Byrd says he did?
I don’t remember the mainstream press dismissing the Democratic keynote speakers right after they spoke by simply repeating the Democratic spin on why we should discount what we heard.